Marring and light holograms on 98 GTI

[smitherrz]

Hey guys,

I'm new to detailing. I recently purchased a 98 VW GTI VR6. The paint was in decent condition, so I decided to watch a ton of videos and read a bunch of forums on how to perfect paint with ease. So, I went to auto geek and bought a Griots 6 inch DA polisher, along with, Meguiar's Correction Compound, Meguiar's MF cutting pad and a MF finishing pad. Once the package came I was beyond excited to get to work. So, like I had read, I washed the car with a MF mit, clayed, and dried with a waffle weave towel. I then went on to pulling the car into the garage to begin correction. I applied the correction compound to the MF cutting pad and primed the disc as directed by videos and forums. I had the polisher on speed 4-5, going in cross motions with moderate pressure and a slow arm motion. I followed up the compounding with ultimate compound and the finishing disc using nearly the same steps as above. Once the car was done, a ton of the scratches and dullness had went away, leaving me a happy man. Well, I pulled my car into the sun later that day and spotted some micro marring and wish wash holograms in the paint! So frustrated...I tried going over the spots again and no results. Please help! This is my first correction experience. I want to learn and fix my mistake rather than take it somewhere to be done. Would appreciate some advice! Thanks guys

[DaveT435]

Did you let up on the pressure your last couple section passes? I haven't worked on any VW's. I thought I had heard VW had hard paint. It sounds like you are working with softer paint. You may want to try a foam polishing pad, or finishing pad with a finishing polish. I'm not a pro so we'll see what some others have to say.

[mwoolfso]

Did you lock-in a full process, end-to-end, before you did the whole car (test spot)? I assume you didn't considering the results.

My guess is that Ultimate Compound didn't do much of anything on the VW paint. You need a better finishing polish to get rid of the micro-marring. I could be wrong and the test spot approach would prove or disprove my theory.

You should also try an IPA on the paint to remove all of the polishing oils MUC left there. Only then will you see how much your approach really did on the VW.

Pics would help as well. :-)

[smitherrz]

Thanks for the responses! I think you guys hit it on the head...I did in fact "test" a spot, and it had great results in the garage lighting. The paint was deeper and the webs and swirl scratches were gone. So, as an inexperienced polisher, I figured that the final polishing step could be done kind of half-assed. But again, when in the sunlight, marring and wish wash scratches appear. I agree that I probably need some foam pads; I just ordered uber orange (med cutting) and uber green (polish/final) from detailers domain. Should I try and use the correction compound with orange and ultimate polish with the green pad? Or should I opt for meguiars m105/m205 combination? I attached a photo or two of the car. It's early right now so the sun is only on one side of the car, but the photos show exactly what has happened basically all over the vehicle. AH! And sorry...above I meant that I followed the correction compound with Ultimate POLISH not the compound. Haha

[toycar18]

Sounds like you did not use a finishing polish with your finishing pad.

Usually after you compound you need to use finish polish and finish pad to take away defects from com pounding.

Megs m205 with a white foam lc ccs pad is a good combo.

[David Hayward]

Do you have the entire meguiars mf kit or did you just buy the correction compound and cutting pads and finish pads? You should try following up using the finishing pad with either the meguiars finish wax D301 that come in the mf kit or use another finish polish on that pad. Or better yet a white lake country flat or ccs pad with finish polish.

[David Hayward]

Just saw that you used ultimate polish. For the finish polish step I think with the mf pads you may want to slow your polisher down to about 3.5 or 4 and don't use a ton of pressure.

[smitherrz]

Yes I only have the mf cutting and finish pad with correction compound...I'm thinking that foam pads produce a different result than the micro fibers. I ordered uber orange and uber green (supposedly very similar to lake country white flat) from detailers domain yesterday. Should be coming in the mail soon. Wondering if I should use the correction compound on the uber orange or try a new polish like meg m105 and finish with m205 on uber green

[David Hayward]

I would try the ultimate polish with the green pad to start if that doesn't work as desired try 205 or something similar. I think you will probably be happy after the ultimate polish with a foam pad though.

[smitherrz]

I agree. I'm thinking the fine ultimate polish and a foam pad will do just fine to remove compound marring